Woodstock 1969 – Day Two Remembered

Today we celebrate day two of the 45th anniversary of that iconic festival. Santana, CCR, Janis, the Dead, the Who, and more! Tonight's Saturday Night Attitude Dance is courtesy of Woodstock Nation!

We must remember that no one really knew they were making history at the time. Monterey had kicked off “the Summer of Love” two years earlier, and there were more than a few festivals that happened between Monterey and Woodstock. Many bands turned down the chance to be at Woodstock for all kinds of reasons.

Even Joni Mitchell chose not to perform, since she didn’t want to miss her gig on the Dick Cavett Show. But she did write the song Woodstock while in her hotel room in NYC, watching the television reports. As she told an interviewer at the time, “The deprivation of not being able to go provided me with an intense angle on Woodstock..." Lyrics at the end of this article.

When Crosby, Stills, and Nash made the song huge, everyone knew something was up with the “Woodstock Nation.” From there it entered the annals of history, and became an icon no one has been able to replicate since.

Country Joe MacDonald was the first major act on Saturday, flying solo without the Fish. He also performed as Country Joe and the Fish on Sunday, but for our tribute I’ll combine both his solo acoustic performances and the band’s very psychedelic electric set pieces in today’s tribute. So today we open the second day of Woodstock with Country Joe and the Fish cranking up “Rock and Soul Music”

The end of the set featured the ever-memorable anti-war rag by Country Joe McDonald doing the legendary “Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag” (... be the first one on your block to have your boy come home in a box, and It’s one two three what are we fighting for, don’t ask me now I don’t give a damn, next stop is Vietnam, and it’s five six seven open up the pearly gates, there ain’t no time to wonder why whoopie we’re all gonna die…..)

We’ll close this set with Country Joe giving us an acoustic performance of his extremely psychedelic tune that kicked off side one of his first album, “Electric Music for the Mind and Body,” the very trippy “Flyin’ High” (For those of you who have never heard the song - and album - that made the world aware that psychedelic music was in full swing in San Francisco, here’s “Electric Music For the Mind and Body” “Flyin’ High” is the first song, and the whole album is considered one of the first truly psychedelic creations.)

We now move and groove into the next performer, the legendary Carlos Santana! There isn’t much performance video footage out there, but I did find great performance video of his hit "Evil Ways."

We now move into one of the truly legendary performances of all time! Here’s the Magic Man telling his story of taking LSD just before he went on stage at Woodstock grounding lightning in a bottle. One of the most exciting performances in history!! “Soul Sacrifice”

While there were a few bands between Santana and our next act, we’ll cut to the chase since it’s time to get down and boogie! For your dancing pleasure, Canned Heat! We’ll begin with their opening tune, “Going Up The Country”

I found video footage of the Grateful Dead at Woodstock! Here’s a 20+ minute set of The Grateful Dead At Woodstock 1969 (“Mama Tried,” “High Time,” “St. Stephen,” and the infinitely danceable “Turn On Your Love Light.”

Though this is not from Woodstock, it’s still great video footage just before Woodstock of Sly and the Family Stone in June 1969 at the Harlem Cultural Festival giving us “Everyday People” and “Dance To The Music”

And if you just can’t get enough of the Who, here’s 29 minutes of video at Woodstock caught on film for your viewing pleasure! The entire Who Woodstock set (“Sparks," “Pinball Wizard,” “the Abbie Hoffman incident,” “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” “Summertime Blues,” “Encore and Pete,” “My Generation,” and “Naked Eye.”)

I’ll close our tribute today with the song that captured everything and made it into pop history!

Woodstock
By Joni Mitchell

I came upon a child of God He was walking along the road
And I asked him, "Where are you going?" And this he told me...

I'm going on down to Yasgur's Farm, I'm going to join in a rock and roll band.
I'm going to camp out on the land. I'm going to try an’ get my soul free.

We are stardust. We are golden.
And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Then can I walk beside you? I have come here to lose the smog,
And I feel to be a cog in something turning.

Well maybe it is just the time of year, Or maybe it's the time of man.
I don't know who I am, But you know life is for learning.

We are stardust. We are golden.
And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.

By the time we got to Woodstock, We were half a million strong
And Everywhere there was song and celebration.
And I dreamed I saw the bombers Riding shotgun in the sky,
And they were turning into butterflies Above our nation.

We are stardust. Billion year old carbon.
We are golden. Caught in the devil's bargain
And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Comments

Well, as they say, if you can remember it, you weren't there. I actually was at Woodstock, but usually find myself speechless when people ask me who I saw perform. So thanks, Robert, for jogging my memory! (Not to mention posting the cool clips!!)